JERUSALEM â€” The former chief of Israelâ€™s domestic intelligence agency has described Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak as men driven by â€œmessianic feelingsâ€ and said he had â€œno faithâ€ in them to lead a potential strike on Iranâ€™s nuclear facilities.

The scathing comments by Yuval Diskin, who had kept a low profile since retiring last year, added to the sense of a divide between Israelâ€™s security establishment and its political leadership over the Iran issue. Earlier this week, the current military chief voiced confidence that sanctions and the threat of military action would deter Iran from building nuclear bombs, an analysis that contrasted with Netanyahuâ€™s and Barakâ€™s grimmer assessments.

Diskin, who headed the Shin Bet security agency for six years, was far more harsh. Speaking at a community meeting Friday, he said a pre-emptive Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear sites would probably accelerate, not end, Iranâ€™s nuclear ambitions.

â€œThey are misleading the public on the Iran issue,â€ Diskin said of the prime minister and the defense minister, according to an account in the daily newspaper Haaretz.

He added: â€œBelieve me, I have observed them from up close. .â€‰.â€‰. They are not people who I, on a personal level, trust to lead Israel to an event on that scale and carry it off. These are not people who I would want to have holding the wheel in such an event.â€

Diskinâ€™s comments echoed those previously made by Meir Dagan, the chief of Israelâ€™s Mossad spy agency until January 2011, who said last year that a strike on Iran would lead to â€œregional warâ€ and encourage Iran to continue its nuclear program. At the time, Dagan also told Israeli journalists that he feared his retirement, as well as that of Diskin and the former military chief, Gabi Ashkenazi, had removed voices that could â€œblock any dangerous adventureâ€ led by Netanyahu and Barak.

But Diskin, who was described upon his retirement as a highly successful Shin Bet chief, had not publicly spoken of his reservations before Friday.

The offices of Netanyahu and Barak issued no responses Saturday. But other government officials and politicians denounced Diskinâ€™s words as politically motivated and inappropriate.

â€œIf these are his opinions, he should have stated them in the appropriate forums while he was in office,â€ Transportation Minister Yisrael Katz said, according to the Jerusalem Post.

Another Israeli official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Diskinâ€™s leadership of the internal security agency meant he was a â€œperipheral playerâ€ on the topic of Iran. The official termed Diskinâ€™s criticism of Israeli leaders â€œsurprising and strange,â€ in part because Diskin had elected to serve an additional year at the Shin Bet.

In recent days, Israeli officials have played down the notion of a civil-security divide on the topic of Iran. Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, the military chief who told Haaretz earlier this week that he believed Iranian leaders were â€œvery rational peopleâ€ who would ultimately decide against building nuclear weapons, said Thursday that there was no disagreement among Israeli leadership.

On Thursday night, Barak emphasized that the decision about a pre-emptive strike would be made by political leaders and carried out by the military, and he deemed the chance of sanctions permanently stopping Iranâ€™s nuclear programs as â€œlow.â€

â€œThe fact that we are talking about clever and calculated people, who seek to stay in power, and are striving to reach their goals underhandedly and with an idea of the moves and intentions of their rivals, does not make them rational in the Western sense of the word, in other words, a status quo and peaceful solution to the issue,â€ he said in an address on Israelâ€™s Independence Day.

A stinging attack on Israel's political leadership by a former head of Shin Bet, the security agency, continued to reverberate on Sunday despite high-level efforts to discredit the former spy chief's motives.

Yuval Diskin said the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, and defence minister, Ehud Barak â€“ the principal advocates of military action against Iran's nuclear programme â€“ were unfit to lead the country and could not be trusted to conduct a war. The "messianic" pair were misleading the public on the merits of an attack.

"I've seen them from up close. They are not messiahs, either of them, and they are not people whom I, on a personal level, trust to lead the state of Israel into an event of that scale. They are not the people whom I would truly want to be at the helm when we set out on an endeavour of that sort," Diskin told a community meeting on Friday.

Opposition leader Shaul Mofaz seized on the attack, which was considered by most commentators to be calculated rather than spontaneous, telling Army Radio: "To me, Diskin's words are a warning sign to be taken seriously."

Neither Netanyahu nor Barak responded personally, but aides dismissed the salvo as the act of a man frustrated not to have been offered the job of director of Israel's external intelligence agency, the Mossad.

"It's surprising and strange," a government official told the Guardian. "Why did he seek to become head of the Mossad under the present government if he thought so little of it?"

However, some commentators praised Diskin for speaking out. Writing in Yedioth Ahronoth, the columnist Nahum Barnea said: "Yuval Diskin is a thug. He is brusque, lashes out and is lacking in any political correctness â€¦ His style is inappropriate, his words are unacceptable. Only one thing can be said to his credit: he is telling the truth. A troubling truth, an annoying truth, but the truth nevertheless. Diskin is the man who took upon himself the role of the boy who cries out: 'The emperor has no clothes'."

Diskin's comments echoed criticism by Meir Dagan, former head of the Mossad, who has said attacking Iran was "the stupidest idea I have ever heard". Last week, Israel's chief of staff, Benny Gantz, said the Iranian regime was rational and Israel must make its decision about whether to attack "without hysteria".

The comments have fuelled the belief among some observers that there is a clear gap over the issue of Iran between Israel's political leaders and its security establishment.

The former Shin Bet chief did not confine his comments to Iran. On peace negotiations with the Palestinians, he said: "Forget all about the stories they're selling you in the media about how we want to talk but [Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas] doesn't, and so forth. I'm telling you, we're not talking with the Palestinians because this government has no interest in talking with the Palestinians â€¦ I know from up close what is going on in that area."

Netanyahu, he said, feared that even "the smallest step forward on this issue" would cause his coalition to collapse.

He warned against growing Israeli extremism, saying there were people "willing to use guns against their fellow Jews" in the event of the evacuation of settlements in the West Bank.

The country was becoming more aggressive and racist, he said. "The youth in Israel has become over the past 10 to 15 years more and more racist. Racism against Arabs and against foreigners, against those who are different."

The Washington Post is as anti-Israel as the US president. Personally I do not see the value of this unending anti-Israel propaganda by a very few DFI members. Can they tie in any way to INDIAN DEFENCE? I doubt it.

The Washington Post is as anti-Israel as the US president. Personally I do not see the value of this unending anti-Israel propaganda by a very few DFI members. Can they tie in any way to INDIAN DEFENCE? I doubt it.

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Propaganda..... and you call yourself American?

Yeah freedom of press.... totally propaganda...

"The Post has won 47 Pulitzer Prizes. This includes six separate Pulitzers awarded in 2008, the second-highest number ever given to a single newspaper in one year"

The Washington Post is as anti-Israel as the US president. Personally I do not see the value of this unending anti-Israel propaganda by a very few DFI members. Can they tie in any way to INDIAN DEFENCE? I doubt it.

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I'm glad you posted this though, look in the mirror you're just another typical hypocritical yank that thinks he's democratic as long as it suits him.

The Washington Post is as anti-Israel as the US president. Personally I do not see the value of this unending anti-Israel propaganda by a very few DFI members. Can they tie in any way to INDIAN DEFENCE? I doubt it.

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Probably not, but then again, serves a s a great example to the Indian public on how Israelis are prone to being misled by anyone, everyone and ofcourse, by the paranoia of 'anti-semitism'.